A expert system for aid in material selection process

An expert system for aiding material selection process is proposed which, in conjunction with TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Situation), provides a very effective and efficient technique for material selection for a component. TOPSIS is a highly advanced optimization technique which requires that the user provides an index of relative importance for different properties by the author, the relative importance rating to be decided by the designers. However, the designers may not arrive at the same conclusion due to their different rating technique even though they use the same technique. In the proposed method, an expert system has been presented, which uses a small tool called Rulemaster and OPSS (developed at IIT Delhi) that facilitates the development of particular consultant paradigms. In identifying the knowledge base to be included in the system, special care was taken so that different designers get uniform results by using the proposed system